Say She She Is Ready for Its Miami Debut at North Beach Music Festival

If you ever complained they don't make music like they used to, you owe it to yourself to check out Silver, the new album by Say She She. The record's 16 space-age disco tracks transport you back to Studio 54 while also bringing 21st-century touches.

"We record to tape because of that warmth," Piya Malik tells New Times. She's one of the three vocalists who make up Say She She, along with Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown. "With digital recording, you can get into that spiral of chasing perfection. But the human voice is the perfection."

The New York-based act met in what they describe as a distinctly New York fashion. Mileo Cunningham and Malik lived in the same thin-walled building. "I could hear everything Piya said," Mileo Cunningham remembers. "I could hear her singing and having fun, so I knew I wanted to be friends with her."

Gazelle Brown joined a bit later after meeting Malik at a rooftop party where, over a few drinks, they sang to each other. Despite that spontaneous introduction, Gazelle Brown remembered being nervous before her first rehearsal with the pair. "They had written a bunch of songs already," she says. "Piya highlighted for me which notes I would sing. Right away, it was so joyful and easy that the nerves went away."

The trio's shared musical influences included Rotary Connection, a 1960s Chicago collective of psychedelic soul with a medley of voices. They also adore early '80s New York music like the Talking Heads, E.S.P., the Tom Tom Club, and Grace Jones. Even the group's name, Say She She, is an homage to one of their biggest influences, Chic.

While Say She She's debut, 2022's Prism, was written chiefly with a piano, this year's sophomore album, Silver, was written with the accompaniment of a seven-member band. "We had the rhythm section with the funky bass lines. That allowed us the freedom to explore," Mileo Cunningham adds.
That freedom is a big deal for the trio, who previously mostly worked as backing singers.

"I'd never been in a project where you can be yourself," Malik says. "You want to sound like the music you enjoy. But most important, we want to sound like the three of us. We call the voice when all three of us sing together, the fourth voice."

South Florida audiences will be able to witness the fourth voice for themselves when Say She She plays its first show in the Sunshine State as part of the North Beach Music Festival, which also features headliners the Disco Biscuits and Cory Wong. While Say She She is scheduled to go on early at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 2, festival founder Gideon Plotnicki is a big believer that the group is about to make it big. "I'm really excited about them. No one knows them now, but by this time next year, everyone will know who they are," Plotnicki says.

Still, the members of Say She She aren't worried if nobody knows who they are, especially because of the vibe they want to set during their performances.

"Our dream is to create that old-school New York disco scene where people aren't facing front. Everyone is looking at each other, dancing, with the music being the force allowing it to happen," Priya says before explaining the differences between shows in her native England and the U.S. "In Europe, concerts are where you're sitting and watching music quietly. There's a difference between a disco and a concert."

Gazelle Brown agrees, "There's nothing like seeing people get down."

North Beach Music Festival. Friday, December 1, through Sunday, December 3, at the Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; northbeachmusicfestival.com. Tickets cost $70 to $470.